MYTHS OF GLOBAL WARMING

Global Warming is a much publicized
subject which concerns many in the world right now. A United Nations
summit in Kyoto Japan last December addressed the so called threat to
mankind of global warming. The President of the United States has already
committed himself to finalizing a treaty that would impose legally
binding, internationally enforceable limits on the production of
greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). That decision was based
on the belief that global warming is significant, that humans are its
primary cause and that only immediate government action can avert
disaster. It is now stated fact that President Clinton will use Executive Privilege
to implement the United Nations environmental agenda.

Yet there is no scientific
consensus that global warming is a problem or that humans are its cause.
Even if current predictions of warming are correct, delaying drastic
government actions by up to 25 years will make little difference in global
temperature 100 years from now. Proposed treaty restrictions would do
little environmental good and great economic harm. By contrast, putting
off action until we have more evidence of human-caused global warming and
better technology to mitigate it is both environmentally and economically
sound.

Much of the environmental
policy now proposed is based on myths. Let's look at the four most common.

Myth #1: Scientists Agree
the Earth Is Warming. While ground-level temperature measurements suggest
the earth has warmed between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees Celsius since 1850,
global satellite data, the most reliable of climate measurements, show no
evidence of warming during the past 18 years.

Even if the earth's
temperature has increased slightly, the increase is well within the
natural range of known temperature variation over the last several
thousand years years. Indeed, the earth experienced greater warming
between the 10th and 15th centuries - a time when vineyards thrived in
England and Vikings colonized Greenland and built settlements in Canada.

Myth #2: Humans Are Causing
Global Warming. Scientists do not agree that humans discernibly influence
global climate because the evidence supporting that theory is weak. The
scientific experts most directly concerned with climate conditions reject
the theory by a wide margin.

A Gallup poll found that
only 17 percent of the members of the Meteorological Society and the
American Geophysical Society think that the warming of the 20th
century has been a result of greenhouse gas emissions - principally CO2
from burning fossil fuels.

Only 13 percent of the
scientists responding to a survey conducted by the environmental
organization Greenpeace believe catastrophic climate change will
result from continuing current patterns of energy use.

More than 100 noted
scientists, including the former president of the National Academy of
Sciences, signed a letter declaring that costly actions to reduce
greenhouse gases are not justified by the best available evidence.

While atmospheric carbon
dioxide has increased by 28 percent over the past 150 years,
human-generated carbon dioxide could have played only a small part in
any warming, since most of the warming occurred prior to 1940 - before
most human-caused carbon dioxide emissions.

Myth #3: The Government
Must Act Now to Halt Global Warming. The belief underlying this myth
is that the consequences of near-term inaction could be catastrophic
and, thus, prudence supports immediate government action.

However, a 1995 analysis
by proponents of global warming theory concluded that the world's
governments can wait up to 25 years to take action with no appreciable
negative effect on the environment. T.M.L. Wigley, R. Richels and J.A.
Edmonds followed the common scientific assumption that a realistic
goal of global warming policy would be to stabilize the concentration
of atmospheric CO2 at approximately twice pre-industrial levels, or
550 parts per million by volume. Given that economic growth will
continue with a concomitant rise in greenhouse gas emissions, the
scientists agreed that stabilization at this level is environmentally
sound as well as politically and economically feasible. They also
concluded that:

Governments can cut
emissions now to approximately 9 billion tons per year or wait
until 2020 and cut emissions by 12 billion tons per year.

Either scenario
would result in the desired CO2 concentration of 550
parts per million.

Delaying action
until 2020 would yield an insignificant temperature rise of 0.2
degrees Celsius by 2100.

In short, our
policymakers need not act in haste and ignorance. The government has
time to gather more data, and industry has time to devise new ways of
reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Myth # 4: Human-Caused
Global Warming Will Cause Cataclysmic Environmental Problems.
Proponents of the theory of human-caused global warming argue that it
is causing and will continue to cause all manner of environmental
catastrophes, including higher ocean levels and increased hurricane
activity. Reputable scientists, including those working on the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations
organization created to study the causes and effects of global climate
warming, reject these beliefs.

Sea levels are rising
around the globe, though not uniformly. In fact, sea levels have been
rising for thousands of years- far predating any possible human
impact.

Periodic media reports
link human-caused climate changes to more frequent tropical cyclones
or more intense hurricanes. Tropical storms depend on warm ocean
surface temperatures (at least 26 degrees Celsius) and an unlimited
supply of moisture. Therefore, the reasoning goes, global warming
leads to increased ocean surface temperatures, a greater uptake of
moisture and destructive hurricanes. But recent data show no increase
in the number or severity of tropical storms, and the latest climate
models suggest that earlier models making such connections were
simplistic and thus inaccurate.

Since the 1940s the
National Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory has documented a
decrease in both the intensity and number of hurricanes.

From 1991 through 1995,
relatively few hurricanes occurred, and even the unusually intense
1995 hurricane season did not reverse the downward trend.

The 1996 IPCC report on
climate change found a worldwide significant increase in tropical
storms unlikely; some regions may experience increased activity while
others will see fewer, less severe storms.

Since factors other than
ocean temperature such as wind speeds at various altitudes seem to
play a larger role than scientists previously understood, most agree
that any regional changes in hurricane activity will continue to occur
against a backdrop of large yearly natural variations.

What about other effects
of warming? If a slight atmospheric warming occurred, it would
primarily affect nighttime temperatures, lessening the number of
frosty nights and extending the growing season. Thus some scientists
think a global warming trend would be an agricultural boon. Moreover,
historically warm periods have been the most conducive to life.
Previously earth's plant life has thrived in a much warmer, carbon
dioxide-filled atmosphere.

When all the evidence is
taken in to account it is clearly evident that there is warming around
the globe, but when it comes to the planet as a whole the planet has
in fact cooled down over the previous twenty years. It is also clearly
evident that what is claimed as 'global warming' is not due to mankind
but rather due to volcanoes and other natural phenomena. It is
estimated that humans have contributed about two percent of some local
climate warming. Many scientists are currently exposing the myths of
global warming. So rather than legislating in haste and ignorance and
repenting at leisure, governments should maintain rational policies,
based on science and adaptable to future discoveries. This may be so
but for the agenda that is in reality underlying the global warming
threat. Let us not forget the Hegelian Dialectic.

THESIS (initial problem) ANTITHESIS
(opposition to the problem) SYNTHESIS (solution to the problem)

But never mind the loss of freedom
in the process, after all we need controls for our own protection.
Control through consensus.